If a man know that he can do any thing, — that he can do it better than any one else, — he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws (1841). copy citation

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Author Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source Spiritual Laws
Topic action acknowledgment
Date 1841
Language English
Reference in "Essays: First Series"
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Spiritual_Laws

Context

“but they could not, though they twisted and folded their lips even to indignation. A man passes for that he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so. If a man know that he can do any thing, — that he can do it better than any one else, — he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper.” source